Record of Our SummerTime
by PolandSpringz
Summary: The record of their final summer days spent together.
1. Mind

I didn't make eye contact with her. I just held out my sketch pad and pencil and she knew. She wheeled me towards the cliff, the cliff that overlooked the town. It had a beautiful view of the skyline, an even more gorgeous view of where we had met up. The small house was not in the center of the town, or even the way back of it like in some anime or manga. It was directly to the west, in between the downtown area and the suburbs. It was a plain gray building with few windows, with a sidewalk that went around the front and down the east side of the house, and the lovely dull house was a couple blocks behind the park, and beside that an alley. I may have not lived in the same body as I had when I visited the house but I remembered each place perfectly. It did not matter whether or not every detail of the town was visible from where I was. I could see it. I could see the town I had lived in for the two completely different parts of my life. The third part of my life belonged to this town, yes, but it was a different town, in a different world, in a different time. The third part of me was the part that we called Kuroha. Kuroha was the one who killed everyone, but he was also the one who was saved by everyone.

I was Kuroha, I was a murderer and yet I was not. The second part of me, my second body, was referred to as Konoha. I was more used to a stoic expression in that stage but I still showed more "pleasant" emotions than the third me. Konoha was basically the good twin of Kuroha, the good twin that was connected. My womb, as he liked to call it, was the gateway to him, I was connected through the snakes of his world. By opening the gateway, we died. And with the death of me came the birth of him. In the moment of my birth, I was connected with knowledge. I knew of my friends' deaths, their decisions, their stupid mistakes that lead to their inevitable demise. I believe that if Kuroha hadn't known that when he was born whenever they entered the gateway, he wouldn't have been evil. When Konoha was born, I was sealed off inside and I perceived life with another mind. I had the same sense of knowing, almost like that feeling you get when you realize something that is completely off topic or random, but that feeling was directed at not knowing. I had gained the realization of not knowing anything in Konoha's body. I think that is why when Kuroha was born and he received the same feeling but in a more powerful sense, he was driven to madness in knowing that they were once his friends and thus, was forced to become the spawn of Satan. When I was Kuroha, I received information from something farther back than third person. It was something that is never used in writing. I wasn't a narrator or anything that was Konoha. I was in fourth person.

Being in fourth person is _traumatizing_ to one. It is basically a combination of sleep apnea, paralysis, and cataplexy all combined. It was almost like I had received all of her problems she must have suffered from. Imagine being in a state where you fall asleep and you enter REM. During REM, you fade in and out of consciousness, hallucinating as well as dreaming. You have the inability to have a lucid dream however, do to sleep apnea and sleep paralysis. When you leave a dream and start to hallucinate the next, you can see the outside world. You can see where you're resting and feel where you are. But, you feel like your body is lead, and glued together. You feel pressed against something and, well, excuse me for a minute, this part is frightening for me to recall. You lose the ability to breath. What you are pressed against is suffocating you and you can't breathe. It takes all your willpower to fling your body away from the suffocating force. This is when you awake. Unfortunately for me, I awoke when everyone had died; yet, I was saved in that moment. I was able to force Kuroha to take my place, but I didn't touch Konoha. He didn't need isolation, he need friends. I brought him forward, and combined our minds. I remember reaching out towards the Dan, even with all the bodies littered around me. The mark on my face flickered from red to black apparently, according to those who still had their consciousnesses, and one eye lost its snake like appearance. It was an eye she recognized.

Even though the phone had been crushed, and she was lost in a broken memory card, I felt something buzz in my pocket. I felt something vibrate. I reached down and pulled out my cell phone. I had tears forming in my eyes. The unopened message read, _To Haruka, From Takane._

I gripped the phone tightly as I pressed a button, letting the pixilated envelope open up and I used a shaky hand to shield one eye as the combinations of letters brought tears to me. I even could feel something breaking in the back of my conscious. I dropped the phone to the ground, and traced over the digital letters that simply fulfilled a job as my pants were stained with tears. I could bring myself to give the message a response. I pressed the button, opening the attachment.

Small blue, static created a hologram in front of me. I saw some pixels form as a blue glow was emitted from the phone's screen like a projector. I heard her voice, and I looked up to her face and I nearly lost it.

She had the same cerulean sport jacket that matched her "master's" and the same grey skirt with black leggings that had a blue dotted line. Behind her, in the abyss made of static was the number zero and one in no pattern whatsoever. Very fitting for a cyber being. Only thing different about her was that the scales on her cheek where missing and her hair was darker. It was growing to a navy, almost black color. Was she fading away?

"ENE! ENE! PLEASE, DON'T GO! ENE! I'M SORRY! PLEASE!" I stood up and held my arm out, but I didn't cross the invisible boundary the phone had created between us. I just held my arm out and screamed.

"ENE!"

"I'M SORRY. ENE IS NO LONGER HERE." A robotic voice spoke loudly as the girl moved her mouth. The voice wasn't her own. I saw a grey box appear in front of the girl. For once, she was behind the option this time. Soon multiple boxes appeared each one with two answers. The girl leaned her head to the side and smiled, but soon, it was covered by another box. I raced towards the girl, slamming my hands against the holographic screen. I began to yell at the top of my lungs, and I punched the screen.

"TAKANE THEN! TAKANE! ANSWER ME!"

"TRANSFERRING DATA…PLEASE WAIT…." I watched as all the other boxes vanished and a single one covered her eyes. She had turned away her gaze and hid them. I slid down to the ground, and held my head in shame. My face scrunched up and tears and snot mixed as my face stiffened. I was losing her. She was going to die. What else could she transfer to? There was no cables anywhere, no computers for miles! She was going to transfer to nowhere. She would just vanish into oblivion, into the haze, all because I had to lose control of myself.

If only I didn't die.


	2. Heart

_If only I didn't die._

If only I didn't kill the Medusa girl then I could still save myself.

I didn't look up as the blue screen faded.

A shadow formed on the tar street about two yards in front of me.

It approached me, I did not move.

I felt something touch my shoulder. I did not move.

I heard a voice. I lunged at the shadows owner and embraced them.

She was physical.

She was alive.

She wasn't dead.

She had transferred herself to this world.

I glanced over her shoulder and I saw the dead bodies.

I cringed.

"Haruka."

She tried to pull away from me for a moment. I didn't allow it.

"I just got you back."

"I know Haruka but-"

"But I JUST GOT YOU BACK!"

"I know but you can also get them-"

"PLEASE!" I yelled. I knew what she was going to say but she didn't see everything that happened. She was stuck inside a phone. I didn't need her to remind me of the impossible. I clutched the back of her tighter. I was terrified, terrified of the idea that I could lose her again. I refused to do anything cute like nuzzle my head into her neck right now, because I had lost that side of me. I lost it when I lost her. When I was murdered by my own body on that day. I began to talk in a raspy tone, for if I continued to scream her name, I wouldn't be able to tell her the matters that were most important. "Takane…Please, just…just don't say anything about them. I want to hear your voice, I do, it's just- It's just that I need you to be with me right now." She stiffened for a moment, but then, a smile crept across her lips, I think it was the first time I had seen her smile truthfully, and she wrapped her arms around me and stayed silent. The silence, it wasn't full of agony and isolation, like when everyone was first dead. This silence, it still had some of the pain and suffering of the dead, but it also had courage, support, and love within it. They feelings that were swarming my heart contradicted each other and where sending my mind into madness, but I managed to keep quiet for a bit. When I finally let go of Takane, it wasn't awkward at all. She glanced up at me; her black pigtails looked similar to ribbons, and she spoke to me. She spoke it a matter-of-fact voice, but it wasn't cruel or lecturing, it was warm. I want to hug her again, but I didn't want to risk her pushing me away. I looked at her in the eye as she spoke words that seemed to have no sound in this empty repeating town. They fell flat though, and each one made my eyes widen. I knew that each one of the Dan was very much dead. There was no way around it. When she stopped talking, I slapped her face.

"You…" was all I could muster between tears. I had one thousand words and insults to throw at her but I had no way to form them. I said something more logical but less powerful instead, "You know that I wouldn't dare do that! Even if I have the power to do it, I refuse to risk losing you!" I clenched my fists at my sides. I towered above her, I had always been tall and skin due to my health. My skin had also been pale as a child, adding to my fragile appearance. Her face was turned away from me, left in the position where I had slapped her, a red mark fading from her face. She jerked her head back towards me, and pulled my face towards hers and began to scold me.

"You think I don't know that you idiot?! You think I'm happy with the fact that it will just cause another route and the same thing to happen all over again?! You think that I'm just willing to go back to being a computer program?! Well then! Let me give you another suggestion that I was going to state after I took a breath of air. Unfortunately, I was slapped before I could continue! So why don't you shut up!?" Eventually she calmed down and in a clear voice she spoke to me. "You can use the power to do other things than reset time. I'm pretty sure you can. You don't have to reset it all the way back. The world repeats, right? Well, isn't today August 15th?" She smirked at me.

August 15th.

The day a command was set in motion.


	3. Tear

_August 15__th__._

_The day a command was set in motion._

The blazing sun was pouring down on this hell, scorching the tops of skyscrapers and telephone wires. Each one of my friends were scattered around us, the summer heat making the stench of their blood dance. It was overwhelming and made the scene even more ghastly than it should have been. I tried to remain my composure even though I felt like I was going to regurgitate. I glanced over at her. Her black hair that was like ribbons blew to the side when the warm summer breeze passed us by, bringing that putrid smell with it. She blinked before glaring at me with an impatient look. I turned around from and used my hand as a visor as I squinted up at the murderous sun.

I could almost hear the snakes' hisses taunting me from the sky. This world was almost like a snow globe, an enclosed space, someone shaking it up from the outside, making trouble fall. The sun was the same as always though. It was bright, bursting with energy, but never the color yellow like used in a children's drawing where you position it in the corner of the page with a smiley face and lines for rays. The sun was not in the corner of the world but above one, always above you. It was a whitish glow, and you could never escape that whitish glow, no matter how far you run. But, today, we were going to escape the sun, even if for a second, we would escape it and escape its reminder that we were powerless. We were going to show it so much power that we force it to have a bluish glow and we are going to chase it into nighttime.

I clenched my fists and yelled up at the sun, summoning all the courage I did not own, but the courage that I earned. "Save all the children who died on August 15th! Save them all from this hell, forever!" I heard waited for a second, and then I saw it. The black scaly creatures rained down like bullets from the sky and crashed through the ground. The black tar streets were cracked and torn up, revealing the world for what it was, hell. Beneath us was void. Absolutely nothing but void. Sidewalks were shattered and buildings collapse like the twin towers. I could only watch as the debris collapsed onto the ground, revealing more and more of this hell's core. Their hisses were as loud as screams now, bringing an excruciating pain to our ears.

I walked over toward Takane, she now stood over one of our dead friends. Debris was blocking my path and the face of the person she was staring at, but then I saw it. A hand, outstretched. It was covered in blood and disconnected. It wasn't a person she was standing in front of; it was an arm. I looked around at our other friends. The puddles of blood that they had laid in were fading, and I watched as their bodies disintegrated into nothing. When they had all disappeared, I walked back over to Takane and saw that she was still standing right beside the arm, shaking. I touched her shoulder lightly to show my concern. She had never known the boy well but to see a young boy end with such a fate, it would devastate anyone. I glanced over her shoulder, and my eyes widened at the sight that was behind a hill in the road.

_I just had to get over that hill. _

I turned and looked back at Takane. I thought I had heard her whisper something. She was standing still, her head down, fists clenched. I walked back over towards her. I rested my hands on both her shoulders and her head shot up as she shouted with tears in her eyes.

"I JUST HAD TO GET OVER THAT DAMN HILL AND I COULD HAVE SAVED HIM!" She fell to her knees and began to sob. I heard some words from in between her bawling. "I could have transferred my data earlier, but, but I was afraid of dying! I could have transferred my data, and ran down the hill and stopped the truck! I was too scared! I was too scared to do anything and let someone die! I did it again!" She yelled and I thought back to what little I knew about my death. I knew I had died in a classroom, and when I died I remembered watching from a distance as Takane shook my body and cried. I quickly turned around and raced down that hill, not stopping for a second. Beneath that hill, lay the maimed body of a boy, no older than twelve. I crouched beside him, and even though he was already long gone, I began to talk to him. Even though the stench was overwhelming, and his body no longer even looked like it had belonged to a boy, I began to talk to him, in order to keep my sanity.

"Hey, Hibiya, how are you? I'm really sorry about what happened. I didn't mean to I just-"I choked, "I just, lost control of myself. I'm sorry but it's my fault. It's my fault you're like this, isn't? It's all my damn fault!" I pounded against the blood coated ground, screaming, "It's my fault! It's my fault! It's my fault! It's my fault! If only I hadn't died!" I stopped for a second and stared at the ground. My hands were coated with blood, and there were dents in my knuckles from the tar street. I heard a sound, almost like a faint crinkling, and looked at my hands again. Like chipped paint, the red began to blow away. I lifted my head as I watched the boy's body disintegrate into the wind.

_From ashes to ashes._

When he had vanished, I twisted around to look up the tall black hill that was now torn up. With a solemn expression on her face she stood up from the ground. She appeared so tall and courageous as she towered above me on the hill. And then it suddenly happened.

"_WHY?!" I screamed._

"_I died on August 15__th__ as well."_

In that moment, I watched as her body began to crumble away, tearing apart her like a burnt paper sketch. I started bolt up the hill but I only reached halfway when only a fragment of her face remained.

"_Haruka, I love you." _

The tear fell to the ground, and before becoming like candle wax frozen in time against the tar, I watched as it too disintegrated, leaving behind no essence of the girl, or anyone else but me.

I fell to my knees; I was still only halfway up that damn hill. I covered my eyes with my hands and the warm salt water tears collapsed onto my cheeks, just another reminder of our suffering. I through my head back and screamed out, until my throat hurt, and I began to gasp for air. I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach, and I fell on my back, against that burning tar. I glared at the sun as I lost the feeling in my fingers.

_Me too, huh? I guess I did die on August 15__th__ as well. I just have one question._

_Even with all my sins that I bear._

_Can I be sav-_


	4. Text

I felt a sudden gust of wind blow and watched as it blew the pages of my sketchbook up. It had been a year since that day. A year since I had asked her to take me here. During that year, I had drawn many things.

I had drawn plain scenery, of the places I had been, but they were always missing something. So today, I added that something.

_I drew everyone exploring Mary's cottage the day we went there._

_I drew the downtown when Kano had taken the boys, and Kido, there at evening to tell us tales._

_I drew us backstage with Kisaragi when she was chasing her brother away when she was preparing for a concert._

_I drew the day when we had invaded Shintarou's bedroom with Ene._

_I drew the day when we explored the empty school halls with Ene who wouldn't stop blushing._

_I drew the day we walked along the crosswalk, the very same crosswalk where Hiyori and Hibiya were killed._

_I drew the day when Kisaragi had helped me up when I tripped in one of the long dark alleys we always explored._

_I drew the day the Dan and I sat around the coffee table in the living room._

I had filled the blank boring sketches artists called scenery with days that I truly treasured. Those places meant nothing without the people who had been there or were there. I had one final sketch, the sketch of the cliff.

I looked at it for a moment. The sketch showed the overview of the town, the beautiful view of the skyline, an even more gorgeous view of our meeting place, which was located in the west between the downtown and the suburbs. The sketched showed the cliff as well, the concrete rooftop and the metal fence that protected people from falling. The cliff was the cliff the girl who had started it all had jumped.

Her death spiraled into the trio's angst, the meeting of two eyes, the death of two more, the collision of many, and the entrance to one. Now, that it had been a year, I wondered where they ended up.

I slowly used my pencil to draw each one of them. I started with her.

_I drew her ribbon like black hair and her dark gray hoodie with yellow lines. _

_I drew his red coat with the white lines down the side. _

_I drew his brown hair and his blue sleeveless hoodie._

_I drew his long coat with the three dots on either side of his head._

_I drew her pink skirt and her white and pink hoodie._

_I drew her long blue dress with ruffles and her rose covered hoodie._

_I drew his green jumpsuit, which made him look like a frog._

_I drew her green pants, with one leg rolled up, and her purple hoodie._

_But something was missing._

_I drew me._

_I drew me in the middle with my hands at my sides. _

_I drew me in my plain white shirts and light olive sweater._

_I drew me in the middle, alone, and yet beside everyone._

_Even she had left me._

For a moment, I set down my sketchbook and walked over towards the ledge. I stared at the sun. The sun that remained motionless, the sun that we had chased into the bluish glow called nighttime. I smiled at the sun; it was emitting a cheerful glow today. I heard nothing blow, move, or even talk. I heard the quiet whisper of silence that comes rarely, and leaves frequently. I listened to the silence for a moment, and then, all too soon, I heard the rustling of papers behind me. I turned abruptly to look at my sketchbook.

For a moment, I saw them. I saw them staring at the sun with me. Staring at it as they stood behind me, smiling, and laughing, and in that instant, I could tell that they knew we had beaten the murderous sun. They looked a little different from back then, but I didn't care. I turned back towards the sun, and whispered:

"_You'll keep the record of our summer spent together forever, right?" I heard the cheerful laughter of my friends fade to mumbles and almost nothing as I leaned over the railing. I felt the silence return, and then in an instant, it was replaced with something that shouldn't be there._

Shuffling.

Footsteps.

Murmurs.

I felt unfamiliar warmth grasp my hands and I suddenly glanced at my sides.

"_Of course we will." A girl with a red muffler and a girl with a pink dress chimed together, "After all, it was our story too!"_

"Haruka!"

A sudden shouting echoed in the back of my mind, and I checked behind me.

There was nothing but I felt a vibration come from my pocket.

I opened it up and read the text.

_To Haruka_

_From Takane_

_Date Sent: August 15__th_

_Hey, Haruka. I'm coming to the classroom. I hope you're still there! I have something to tell you, so you better be there you idiot!_


End file.
